Fast Financial Close:

Approaches to accelerating your

financial close

Inefficient processes . . .
Higher costs, more errors, longer time to close
5

Financial management
review

Difficult to certify correctness of data

from multiple origins
Data may contain undetected errors

External financial
reporting
New reporting formats
(e.g. XBRL)
Long audit sign-off periods
Increased auditing costs

Manual eliminations
High costs to close books
Large volumes of late adjustments
Inability to ensure on-time close

Time consuming manual processes

make it difficult to respond to ad-hoc
requests for analysis

Group close

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Data submission for group close

Manual processes and spreadsheets use to
transfer data from local to group chart of
accounts
Lack of automated audit trails
Labor-intensive and time consuming data
validation and error reconciliation

Controlling

GL

Consolidations

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FIN

GL
AR

Sales

Local close cycle

Manual journal entries and
reconciliation of data from disparate
systems increases time
Email and spreadsheet status reports
and communications require version
control and contribute to errors

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Intercompany
reconciliation
Manual reconciliation and
elimination
Time consuming and error
prone processes

Top questions executives are now facing . . .

Top Executive Issues

How

do I deploy my staff and resources

towards more value added activities?

How

can I develop the ability to meet

regulators deadlines?

How

can I improve my teams quality of

life by working fewer hours, less late
nights, and fewer weekends?

How

do I achieve a cost reduction while

still meeting deadlines and maintaining
accuracy?

Integration, Automation, and Control accelerate

your financial close . . .
Executive
financial review
Visual tools help
deliver key insights
and validate data,
calculations, and
divisional results
Full cycle compliance
monitoring and
internal control

Group close
Automated eliminations, consolidations,
journal entries, and audit trails
Coordinated worldwide closing schedule
Complete visibility over processes and
owners

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ecu men
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Ma
Internal Audit

Controlling

External reporting
Improved transparency
increases investor confidence
Automated and documented
audit trails

Unified lead ledger and

standardize chart of
accounts
Integrated systems,
automated mapping from
local to group accounts
All units submit data to
same system in common
format

Consolidations

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dit tors
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A ul a
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Data submission
for group close

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IN A

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di a

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Real time synchronization of all tasks
Local close

Cross-system scheduling
Automated and repeatable event based
processes
Monitoring and control

reconciliation

Automated reconciliation
Standard COA eases
matching
Alerts identify exceptions
Workflow based
remediation

. . . Resulting in faster closes, higher quality data,

lower costs, and greater compliance

Faster cycle times to close books

and report on financial
performance

Reduced cost of finance and cost

of compliance

Improved data quality

Fewer errors

Robust audit trails

Better informed decision making

Minimized risk of restatements

Increase stakeholder confidence

Clear task ownership and

responsibilities

CE
N
A
FIN

Real-world customers have been where you are

sitting right now . . .
Customer Benefits Achieved

Reduced reporting resource required by 33%

Reports created 30% faster

Reduced financial statement prep time by 20%

Shortened period-end closes by 2 days

Significantly reduced close cycle time

Used SAP GL as single-instance data source

Reduced reporting cycle time from 20 to 5 days

Roche HQ consolidation cut from 12 to 2 days

Reduced intercompany reconciliation process

from 10 days to 5 days

Reporting cycle cut by 5 days enabling monthly

closings

Cut month-end closing time by 2 to 3 days

Dropped daily business reporting time from 10

person-hours to seconds

Increased data reliability

and process efficiency
results in potential
reduction of close cycle
up to 20%" - IDC

Days to Close Annual

Books
Best in Class
Average
10.1

4.1

Source: ASUG Benchmarks 2006

You have a problem . . .

SAP can help you solve it
1

SAPs end-to-end fast close solution designed for

every stage of the closing cycle

The only natively integrated offering in the

marketplace

Most widely-used financial management system

by global leaders

Comprehensive process scheduling and

monitoring ensures timeliness and accuracy

Proven customer value through SAP

Let us prove it to you . . .

Estimated Benefits

Operating Costs*

% Impact

* Benchmarks from SAPs Case Studies and Success Stories

Time to close books (cycle time)

25% - 45%

Reconciliation costs (e.g., data sources, legal

50% - 80%

accounting, management accounting, inter-company)

Ledger maintenance costs

20% - 40%

Internal and external audit costs

10% - 20%

(self-auditing processes)

World-class companies spend 45% less on their closing and reporting efforts
than other companies and save $5.5 million for every $1B in revenue.
Source: The Hackett Group

At Roche we cut our monthly reporting cycle from 20 to 5 work days,

and now our top management has the ability to make faster business
decisions, which they really appreciate.
Source: Head of Corporate Finance Informatics, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd

Where to go for more

information . . .

Visit us at the following locations . . .

Website: www.SAP.com
Blog: CFOKnowledge.wordpress.com
MicroBlog: twitter.com/CFOKnowledge
Video: vimeo.com/channels/CFOKnowledge